Cuba hopes for Washington’s full embrace

Cuba hopes for Washington’s full embrace
By Will Grant BBC News, Havana
1 January 2015 Last updated at 02:25 GMT

On 1 January 1959 Fidel Castro’s fighters rolled victoriously into
Havana having overthrown the Batista regime.

But 17 December 2014 was as momentous a day as any in the revolution’s
56-year history, one that many Cubans thought they would never live to
see: the announcement of a diplomatic thaw with Washington.

As some broadcasters carried the news, they split the screen in two.
Raul Castro on one side with President Obama speaking on the other.

The two leaders – indeed, Havana and Washington – were singing from the
same song-sheet for the first time in over five decades.

Diplomatically, it was a bold move.

The presidents announced that the mutual goodwill had already begun with
a swap of high-profile prisoners: USAID contractor Alan Gross released
in return for the remaining members of the Cuban Five in jail in the US.

Most importantly, though, full diplomatic ties, frozen since January
1961, would be re-instated. Embassies would be re-opened and ambassadors
appointed to their respective capitals.

But now the dust of the initial announcement is beginning to settle,
ordinary people on both sides of the Florida Straits are trying to work
out what it means for them and their families.

Tourism boost
With travel restrictions being eased, more US citizens will inevitably
visit the communist island in 2015.

“If relations normalise with the US, I think people from third countries
will also feel more comfortable coming to Cuba for travel and work”,
says Orlando, the owner of a small bed-and-breakfast in Havana’s old town.

“More tourism will be good for everyone. When the hotels are overbooked,
people come to private homes.”

But it is not just Orlando who is looking forward with positivity.

Everyone you speak to in Cuba’s emerging private sector – restaurant
owners, taxi drivers, people on the fringes of the state-dominated
tourism trade – are cautiously optimistic about the next few years.

Ultimately, though, the new measures feel like change, and for many in
Cuba, change can only be a good thing.

President Castro also knew that things could not go on as they had done
until now.

Cuba was too dependent on oil-rich Venezuela’s largesse to continue
along the same path it had throughout the Cold War.

With the oil price plummeting, he spied a unique window of opportunity
for detente with the old enemy.

“I’ve seen an extraordinary degree of political will, it’s surprised
me”, says Jesus Arboleya, former Cuban consul to Washington. “But that’s
not to say that the problems have been resolved nor that there won’t be
bumps in the road ahead.”

Socialist model
Almost pre-empting those bumps, Raul Castro was adamant that the
country’s socialist model was not coming to an end in his final address
of 2014.

“There are profound differences between the governments of the US and
Cuba that include differing concepts about national sovereignty,
democracy, political models and international relations,” he said as he
closed parliament for the year.

“Just as we have never expected them to change their political system,
we demand respect for ours.”

“The positions of the two governments are clear”, says Jesus Arboleya.

“I think Cuba has negotiated an agreement along the lines of which it
aspired. But the US Government has got what it wanted too, expressing
its interest for political change in Cuba and its right to continue with
projects for the promotion of democracy in Cuba,” he adds.

President Castro did not only temper Cubans’ expectations with his speech.

He also praised President Obama for the move towards normalisation
particularly the announcement that the Secretary of State, John Kerry,
would investigate whether Cuba should be removed from the US
Government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Given Havana’s current role hosting peace talks between the Colombian
government and Colombia’s largest left-wing rebel group, the Farc, it
seems likely they will be taken off the list soon.

Economic embargo
But Cuba clearly wants President Obama to go further, specifically to
see the US economic embargo on the island lifted completely.

Even if he wanted to, and it is clear that he thinks Washington’s
policies of the last 50 years towards Cuba have been counterproductive,
that may be almost impossible for the US President to achieve.

He would need to get it through Congress and there are powerful voices
lined up against him in the form of key Cuban-American politicians.

Instead, he seems determined to make the economic embargo all but
toothless during his next two years in office.

The potential economic benefits of the thaw are significant for the
island, particularly for its international finances, says economist
Ricardo Torres of the Centre for Studies of the Cuban Economy.

“Hopefully we’ll see an important reduction in lending costs for the
country,” he says.

“In establishing normal relations in terms of financial transactions
between the US and Cuba, probably (Washington) will do less in terms of
prosecuting foreign banks or other entities related to financial
transactions with Cuba.”

Those sanctions and fines have amounted to around $11bn (£7bn) over the
past few years.

“It’s been kind of scary for foreign banks to do business with Cuba,” Mr
Torres says.

That change alone, if it bolsters the country’s Central Bank and foreign
currency reserves, puts a hugely different complexion on the economic
outlook for Cuba in 2015.

While much has been written and said about the rapprochement, for now,
the man who brought the revolution to power 56 years ago – Fidel Castro
– is keeping quiet.

Cubans are used to seeing his reflections appear in the state-run
newspaper, Granma, the day after major news breaks on the island.

Yet despite these being the most significant steps for Cuba since the
fall of the Berlin Wall, nothing from Fidel Castro has been published so
far.

“I can say for sure that none of this was done without Fidel’s express
approval”, says Mr Arboleya, who served as Cuba’s consul to Washington
during the 1980s.

That is almost certainly true.

As a man who has spent more than five decades of his life
eyeball-to-eyeball with Washington, he was never likely to blink first.

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